Unions halt Snowy 2.0 strikes for two weeks after FWC intervention

The decision to call off five days of strikes next week follows intervention from the Fair Work Commission.

The Fair Work intervention increases the prospects of a settlement to the bitter dispute. Picture: Supplied

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Workers on Australia’s biggest renewable ­energy project, Snowy Hydro 2.0, have agreed to a two-week pause of their damaging industrial action following the intervention of the Fair Work Commission.

After flagging five straight days of strikes next week, union delegates late on Wednesday night and Thursday morning reluctantly accepted a recommendation by commission deputy president Tony Slevin to pause the industrial action to allow for further intensive bargaining for a new agreement.

Under the proposal, contractor Webuild will provide a full draft agreement to the unions on the $12bn project by Friday ahead of a new round of negotiations next week.

The commission also recommended the company facilitate paid meetings of workers for the following week to hear a report back on the negotiations.

Australian Workers Union NSW secretary Tony Callinan said he held meetings with union delegates overnight and on Thursday morning and they agreed to pause industrial action for two weeks, ahead of three days of intensive bargaining next week.

“The delegates and the workforce weren’t entirely happy with the recommendation of the Fair Work Commission,” he said.

“They were a bit confused as to why the deputy president would have recommended a pause in industrial action.

Australian Workers Union NSW secretary Tony Callinan. Photo: Aymon Bertah

“I just explained to our membership and delegates that when the deputy president gives you a recommendation you’d be in dubious territory to ignore it. I recommended that we follow his recommendation and get around the table for a couple of days for intensive bargaining.

“I said to delegates that if you’re in a pub on a Friday night and a police officer walks in and says, ‘it’s time to go’, if you don’t take their advice, you generally leave in another way.

“The deputy president has suggested we press pause. If we don’t follow his recommendation I assume the company can apply for an order to stop the industrial action, and he’d be likely to grant it.”

The fly-in, fly-out employees earn more than $200,000 ­annually on the government-owned $12bn hydro project and want an upfront payment to bring workers into line with ­tunnel wage rates in Melbourne, where an entry-level tunneller can be paid $230,000 annually and more experienced tunnellers earn more than $300,000 a year, followed by 6 per cent annual pay rises.

After initially rejecting a 23 per cent pay rise offer over four years, workers subsequently ­rejected a new offer from ­Webuild that increased a proposed upfront pay rise and brought forward proposed ­increases in overtime and night shift loading by about 18 months.

Union delegates earlier this week reaffirmed their demand that the wage offer equated to “parity with other projects” as well as improved travel allowances and arrangements to account for “working in the middle of nowhere”.

Webuild has so far rejected pay parity.